


Afterwards - Episode 14 - Gemini and Counting

by Windjammers



Series: Afterwards [14]
Category: Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 03:32:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18683290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windjammers/pseuds/Windjammers
Summary: Jennifer infiltrates a chemical factory known as Med Lab One to steal vaccine when a deadly, mutated virus infects people in the Passages. What no one else on the team realizes are the unknown dangers she faces when she enters the lab. But what happened afterwards?





	Afterwards - Episode 14 - Gemini and Counting

_Disclaimer: The following is a work of fan fiction based on the television series, Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. It is not intended to infringe on the copyrights of Landmark Entertainment Corporation or anyone else who may have legal rights to the characters and settings. I don't own the characters. However, I am putting them into an adventure since the show was cancelled and the writers/producers/directors/actors can’t put them into any new adventures._

~*~*~*~*~

 

**Dread’s Throne Room**

 

Possibly eighty-three percent.

_Eighty-three percent._

Dread considered the percentages in complete and utter disbelief.

Med Lab One was one of the most secure medical facilities in his empire. Its laboratories were far more advanced than any other. The chemical research performed there would hasten an end to the Resistance. Every possible precaution was taken to insure the safety and well-being of the guards, scientists and the technicians assigned to the facility to serve the Machine. Prepackaged food, sterilized water, even atmospheric scrubbers had been installed years earlier to keep his personnel healthy, the environment clean. How was it possible that a sickness could run rampant and infect possibly eighty-three percent of the organics stationed there? How could any type of infection thrive in such an atmosphere?

“My lord,” his attendant entered the throne room and bowed slightly. “Overunit Whitlock has arrived with the preliminary reports from Med Lab One.”

Preliminary reports. Dread hated those words. It meant there was little complete information available. Too much would change as the investigation continued rendering the preliminary reports useless.

“Send him in.”

The attendant gave another slight bow and stood by the door, indicating that the soldier should enter.

Overunit Whitlock marched in, his head held high. “My lord,” he bowed his head in greeting. “Our investigation has –”

“Overunit,” Lord Dread towered menacingly over the soldier, “do you have any information as to the source of the infection?”

Whitlock opened the file he held in his hands and quickly scanned the reports. Undoubtedly, he didn’t want to misspeak in any way. “The medical personnel are still attempting to follow the path of the illness, but they are certain that it was carried into the facility by the intruder. The first to fall ill was a guard, a technician and a cadet. The guard was found after he woke up in a small anteroom – he had been knocked out by sustained compression on pressure points in his neck. The technician was discovered in Lab 36. He suffered a blow to the head and discovered by maintenance technicians a few hours later. His identity and station could not be verified at first because his identification card was in his lab coat that was stolen from him. We have no data yet, but there is the possibility that the intruder wore the lab coat to avoid visual detection. The cadet had been shot in the leg by a possible resistance fighter outside the facility, but upon questioning, she stated that she had no knowledge of the identity of that intruder. She could give only a vague description. The technician and the guard never saw their attacker. What we do know is that several vials of influenza vaccine were taken from Laboratory 41.”

Dread pondered the information for a moment. He was missing something. “Why would an intruder need a vaccine for an illness they were already suffering from? To deprive my people of it once they were infected?” he mused aloud. “Or was stealing the vaccine a distraction? Perhaps the goal of the infiltration was to infect my people…” He thought more on the subject, but he was no closer to discovering the truth. “What else have you learned, Overunit?”

“A first aid kit was taken from Lab 41 as well. The cadet’s wound was treated before she reported to the infirmary.”

That got Dread’s attention. “Someone rendered first aid?”

“It would seem so, my lord.”

“That does sound odd, doesn’t it, Overunit? Someone infiltrates my primary medical laboratory, shoots one of my soldiers and then returns to treat the wound?”

“Very odd, my lord.”

“Three individuals rendered defenseless…” Dread thought over another idea for a moment. “Has the possibility of two intruders been investigated?”

“It has, my lord. There is no firm evidence that there was more than one.”

Dread considered the facts. Three unconscious -- could one person have possibly been that effective? Perhaps, if the individuals were dealt with one at a time. Then, who would have wasted time to care for someone they had injured themselves? An intruder at that… sneaking past all the security protocols -- who could have infiltrated one of his facilities ‘unseen’ or without raising an alarm by any defense mechanism or passing worker?

Who could enter Med Lab One ‘unseen?’ Only biomechs, technicians, scientists, guards, Dread Youth –

Dread Youth.

Could it be?

“Overunit, have any of your interrogations found evidence that any of the personnel saw someone who looked suspicious or who didn’t belong at the facility?”

The overunit shook his head. “No, my lord. In addition, there are no intruder alerts and no hacked entry codes recorded. There was an entry in Lab 41 that did not use a personal ident code. According to the locking mechanism’s entry records, the locking override was initiated by issuance of the master code. Only the overunit in charge has that master code, but unfortunately, he contracted the sickness and died before he could be questioned. However, the time stamp indicates that the master code was input within the hour before any incident is recorded, and the overunit was in that area of the facility at that time. There is nothing indicating that anyone was there who wasn’t assigned there.”

“Were there any recordings that showed any unassigned personnel at the facility?”

“From what we have viewed, no, my lord. All names and assignments have been matched. However, I have learned that not all areas are monitored. An intruder would have had to have known the exact locations of all monitors, all security patrols, all personnel idents, all --”

“Then it was a Dread Youth,” Dread muttered to himself.

“My lord? One of us? None of the soldiers would dare betray you,” he confirmed vehemently. “We are loyal to the Machine!”

Dread raised his hand to stop Whitlock. He wasn’t interested in hearing devout speeches of loyalty. “No, none of my soldiers would,” Dread agreed, his near smile knowingly unnerving the overunit. “But a former Dread Youth, one who knew our procedures and could infiltrate a facility without causing suspicion, coming from the outside –”

“My lord,” Whitlock almost stuttered, “are you saying –”

“I’m saying that this infiltrator is a traitor to the Machine, one who carried this epidemic into Med Lab One. This traitor is responsible for the deaths of the personnel who have died there from this disease.”

“Who, my lord?” the overunit asked, his curiosity sincere.

Dread looked at the overunit, his eyes nearly glaring with anger. “There is only one answer. Former Youth Leader Chase, a guard assigned to Med Lab One some years ago. She is one of Power’s soldiers now.” Dread knew Chase’s academic and military record verbatim. He did not want a repeat of the failure of that youth leader.

Whitlock stared at Dread, stared at his reports. Dread expected no less. The very idea that a Dread Youth could turn on the Machine was unthinkable to many of his soldiers. However, traitors aside, there was still an epidemic in his empire that had to be contained.

“Overunit Whitlock, have the cadet who can identify the infiltrator transferred to Volcania immediately. I wish to question her myself once she has recovered from the influenza. Afterwards, instruct the medical personnel at Med Lab One to keep all infected in quarantine at the facility until further notice. Then take a squadron to Med Lab One and destroy it. Burn it to the ground. We must stop this epidemic from spreading. This illness will be purged. I will not see my dream of a mechanized world felled by a mere germ.”

“My lord, do you mean to… purge… everything and everyone stationed at Med Lab One?”

Dread merely stared at the overunit.

“Yes, my lord. Immediately.”

 

~*~*~*~*~

 

**Power Base Control Room**

Jon walked into the control room as Scout opened the secure frequency. “What is it?” he asked.

“Doctor Ferguson from the Passages,” Scout told him. “She said she has something new for us. I’m bringing her up on vid-link now.”

Jon sat down at the console and saw the doctor for the first time in days. There were circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. “Doctor,” Jon said in greeting.

“Captain.” Doctor Ferguson’s voice sounded tired. No wonder, she had been caring for sick patients for over a week -- fighting fevers, tending to the sick and burying the dead. Her entire expression showed her exhaustion without any explanation needed. “I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get back in touch with you, but this is the first break I’ve had in days.” She paused for a moment, as if trying to find the rights words. “The latest incident reports just came in, and it looks like we may have stopped the spread of the influenza from becoming a full-blown pandemic. We’re hoping that we’ve isolated it to this region, but it’s too soon to be certain,” the doctor explained.

“I’m glad we could help,” Jon told her sincerely, wondering how bad the news really was. “We weren’t sure if we retrieved enough of the vaccine from the med lab.”

“It was more than enough. Some years ago, Dread medical technicians developed a storage method of severely condensing a vaccine into one-fiftieth of its original volume. It allows for long term storage without composition degradation.”

Scout almost chuckled and would have if the news they expected to hear weren’t so dire. “So you just add water and stir, huh?”

“More or less,” the doctor agreed with a weary smile. “In fact, we had an adequate amount of it to send to other medical facilities just outside the regional borders in case the influenza reaches their areas. Let’s hope luck is with us and the virus doesn’t mutate again. I can’t say the personnel at the med lab had the same luck.” She waited a moment, took a deep breath, then continued. “It turns out my suspicions are correct. The newer, deadlier mutation we identified just after you left for the med lab is the one the Dread personnel contracted. I didn’t consider the fact that any one of you could have been a carrier for the virus at the time. I should have since we’d only been inoculated against the original form and the first mutations of the virus. We couldn’t keep up with the changes after that.” There was a brief pause, then, “How’s Pilot? Any better?”

Jon leaned forward a little, his posture showing how tired he was. “She still has the fever, but it’s not as high as it was,” Jon told her. “She’s asleep right now. She’s still sick.”

“Then it’s still running its course. I wish I could give you some sage advice, but you’re doing everything you can for her. I think the illness didn’t affect her as quickly as the med lab personnel because she’s been out here with us ‘organics’ for all these years. She’s built up some defenses. Her fever going down is a good sign, so she should be all right if it breaks soon. If not… look, a few others have survived it.”

Scout moved closer to get a better view of the monitor. “But why did she get sick at all? We don’t understand why the vaccine didn’t work on her as it did on us. We all got the serum at the same time.”

“You didn’t… wait --you don’t know?” she asked.

“Know what?” Jon inquired.

Doctor Ferguson looked down, to the side, anywhere but at the team. Then, “I thought you’d heard already.”

Hawk moved behind Jon to see the vid-screen. “We haven’t heard from anyone in a few days.”

Doctor Ferguson sighed. “The vaccine we used wouldn’t have worked on any of the Dread Youth against this particular strain of the influenza. The virus was a bio-weapon meant to target the Dread Youth. They don’t get sick as far as we know. They’re inoculated for practically any disease known to exist in their own facilities, but their lives are spent in a less germ-filled environment than we have out here in the wastelands. They’re not exposed to various types of bacteria, so their immune systems don’t build up the necessary antibodies to ward off other diseases common to the rest of us. A few of the other Resistance cells have discussed using some kind of biological warfare against the Dread Youth using virus cells, but only one actually did it. They learned enough about Dread Youth physiology to determine which bacteria to use and created a more aggressive form of it that was highly contagious to the Dread Youth. Unfortunately, the virus escaped their lab and infected the rest of the population in the area.”

Germ warfare? None of the team liked the sound of that.

“Please tell us they’re not serious?” Hawk asked her. “That’s what Dread tried to do some months back when he infected a boy with a virus that put people in a coma. It made it easy for Soaron to digitize them.”

“That’s what gave them the idea,” Doctor Ferguson responded immediately. “The original form of the influenza was created to target the Dread Youth, but the later mutations was something no one considered. I mean, it looks like the virus worked the way they intended – reports state that over three-quarters of the personnel at the med lab contracted the deadlier influenza. Now, some of the Resistance leaders are pondering what kind of casualties they could get in Volcania itself since they suffered those kinds of numbers at a medical facility.” The doctor paused, and then said, “Maybe it’s a bit of irony -- the Dread Youth are designed to withstand pain and heal quickly, but a germ lays them low. I guess Dread didn’t think of everything when he created the Dread Youth. What about the rest of you? Any symptoms?”

The four men shook their heads. “No, none of us have been sick,” Tank explained. “The vaccine worked on us. What do you mean that the Dread Youth were designed?”

The doctor shrugged. “Badly chosen word? Maybe conditioned is a better word? All we have to work from are rumors, but it seems Dread conditioned them to ignore pain, illness and emotions because he wanted to create a stronger group of humans to be his organic army. They don’t acknowledge when they’re sick which, for them, is a rare occurrence since their association with other organics outside of Volcania is limited. They’re not exposed to various illnesses on a routine basis.”

The doctor was explaining a theory the team already knew as fact. Sometimes, it still came as a surprise that so many others had no knowledge of the Dread Youth. “That, we understand all too well,” Hawk sighed. “Jennifer was no different when we first met her.” That was true enough. At first, whenever she was wounded, she didn’t allow herself to ‘be’ hurt. She didn’t rest or give herself a chance to heal. She kept working – because it was all she knew to do. If she had ever been sick, she would have done the same thing. However, that didn’t change the fact that someone out there was waging a war of attrition, and Hawk wasn’t going to let this one go. “Which group did this?”

“No one’s taking responsibility yet,” the doctor informed them.

Another thought suddenly occurred to Jon. “Has the influenza run its course? What are the chances that others will catch it or it will mutate again?”

The doctor blew out a breath as she considered her answer. “Not as great as they were. This is what I was contacting you about -- Med Lab One was destroyed. Dread leveled it to the ground a few hours ago with the personnel inside, both dead and alive.”

Dread destroyed Med Lab One? That facility was one of the jewels in his imperial crown. For him to have destroyed it…

“Dread’s got an Achilles Heel,” Hawk muttered. “Now that the Resistance knows he’ll destroy a site to purge a disease, they may try to do this again. They could make Dread dismantle his own infrastructure and demoralize his own troops.”

“And how many people would have to die in the meantime?” Jon asked him. “How many innocent people would die with them?”

“As someone who’s suffered at the hands of the Dread Youth, I can’t say I’m sorry that they were hit with the virus even worse than we were, but as a doctor, well, I hate to see anyone suffer like that. There would have been no medications that could have helped them in this case, and the sick would have outnumbered the healthy. Too bad the virus didn’t affect biomechs or biodreads. If nothing else, it’s given the Resistance another tactic in the war against Dread.”

And that was the brunt of the situation, wasn’t it? The Dread Youth were the enemy, and too many innocent people had been killed on their orders. Few would have sympathy for them under any circumstance, let alone seeing them suffer the same fate as the survivors in the wastelands – and if Dread lost a large portion of his army by whatever means was available to the Resistance, if Dread himself was forced to destroy his own facilities…

War really was hell, only the innocent suffered along with the guilty.

 

~*~*~*~*~

 

Hawk watched Jon as he walked out of the control room toward the sleeping quarters to check on Jennifer. His shoulders were slumped and tired. They were all tired. The influenza had taken hold of Jennifer and did not want to let go – just like too many patients in the Passages. Jon didn’t leave her side until her fever went down the day before, allowing her to breathe easier and get some real sleep. It had been a fight between her and the fever, and all they could do was watch, wait and hope since nothing in their infirmary worked. None of them said the words, but they were scared they were going to lose her.

Too many living in the region weren’t surviving the epidemic. Now, they knew it had been created to target and destroy the Dread Youth.

_Jennifer used to be in the Dread Youth._

Some amorphous ‘someone’ was trying to kill the Dread Youth… trying to kill Jennifer…

Hawk mentally prepared himself for their next possible mission -- Jon would find out which group created the virus. He wouldn’t let this issue continue ‘unaddressed.’

He had noticed that something subtle had changed between Jon and Jennifer. There was a more relaxed companionship between them that wasn’t limited to their private moments any longer. They ‘talked’ to each other even when the rest of the team was around to hear. When Jon had told Jennifer that she wasn’t alone, Hawk recognized the shaded meaning. Going back into a facility where she had once been posted had to be unnerving, but she never let it show. It was a brave face, not false bravado that she showed when she sneaked inside the facility. Jon wasn’t about to let her think that she was on her own, not like she was when she escaped the Dread Youth years earlier. She had them now, and they would be there for her.

Jon hadn’t wanted to send her in there. Hawk thought that was obvious from the moment she had suggested it. He had tried to talk her out of it even though she had been right.

_“There’s another way,” Jennifer told them. “Dread’s chem factory Med Lab One. It’s manned by the Dread Youth.”_

_Jon’s eyes narrowed at the suggestion. “Attack a med lab?” The idea was too dangerous. Med labs were some of the most secure places in Dread’s empire. Extra security, superior sensors, keypads requiring optical and vocal identification, cameras in practically every room and trained on every corridor, the list was endless. It was the main reason the Resistance didn’t try to attack med labs. Biomech factories made much easier targets._

_“Not an attack. Just one person. Me. I’m the one that can do it.” Her voice trembled on the last sentence as a slight bit of nervousness crept into her voice. Jennifer didn’t get ‘nervous.’ “I know the layout, patrol schedule, all the security traps.”_

_Med Lab One had been one of Jennifer’s last assignments as a Dread Youth. She was stationed there as a cadet which meant she had to learn and memorize every entryway and conduit that led into the facility. She had to know every security protocol, every force field, every way in to the facility in order to protect it from attack from any quarter. Given the tactical propensity of her thought processes, she undoubtedly tried to imagine other ways an enemy could gain access so she could have guarded against it. That knowledge could finally be put to good use._

_Hawk could see Jon’s over-protectiveness coming into play, could see him try to hide it. “Yeah, but that was a long time ago. Things could be different now.” It was partly the truth, but it wasn’t a protest that could be taken seriously. Dread was a creature of habit that didn’t change procedures and protocols easily no matter what happened. Once his troops were trained to a routine, he liked to keep it. Change ‘damaged’ his utter control. It was rare that he changed routines._

_“What was the first thing you taught me when you freed me from the Dread Youth? Our prime goal? What we’re all about?” Jennifer asked him, a slight smile on her face. Arguing logically – Jon didn’t stand a chance._

_It was also the one question that Jon couldn’t ignore. “To preserve life.” Hawk wondered briefly if Jennifer realized that her life was one of the lives Jon wanted to preserve._

_Hawk knew that Jon had decided, but he didn’t like his decision. Yet what else could they do? They needed the vaccine, they needed to try to save as many as possible, and the med lab was their only short-term option. He had to agree with Jennifer. “I hate to say it. She’s right.” Hawk knew the dangers as well as Jon and Jennifer did. Walking into a Dread facility wasn’t a task anyone could perform lightly._

_Jon nodded his head. Hawk could see the resignation in his eyes. “All right.”_

Those two words, acquiescing to the inevitable conclusion that Jennifer had to sneak into Med Lab One – Hawk could see Jon was concerned. With all the dangers the biomechs, Dread Youth, who knows how many security traps presented, who knew that they had to worry about the influenza as well?

There were more unguarded moments happening between the two as well. Hawk saw the look pass between them in the jumpship when they went to infrared. He was worried, she was nervous, and their eyes expressed those feelings with each other.

When Jennifer left the jumpship, Jon watched her go. Hawk and the others knew one thing – if the mission went badly, that was the last time they might see Jennifer alive. Maybe, just maybe luck would stay with them a little longer. More than those patients’ lives depended on the success of the mission and Jennifer getting out alive.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Tank sat back in his chair and stretched. “Lab created viruses let loose on the world. I thought we were better than that.”

“And a smart virus at that,” Hawk said as he relaxed in his chair for a moment. “This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. I’ve seen some groups do some desperate things before.”

“Like what?” Scout asked.

Hawk thought for a moment. “During the Metal Wars, every type of warfare you could think of was used to fight Dread. The techs tried to create computer viruses to destroy Overmind or disrupt Dread’s computer network. Air strikes were called in on every base the Resistance could find. Then when we found out that Dread had armies of kids carrying out his orders…” Hawk just shook his head. “That was a bit of a nightmare in itself.”

Scout sat up a little straighter. Kids? Very little was known about that time of the Metal Wars, and even fewer were still alive to tell any tales. Stories about how the defense forces found out about the Dread Youth were varied and incomplete. “How’d you find out about them?”

Hawk looked at his friends for a moment, and then told them something he’d never told anyone before. “I was flying air strikes in northern Michigan, up around where Lake Superior used to be. We’d been there for weeks wiping out as many of Dread’s ships as we could. We had a lot of dogfights and shot a lot of them out of the sky. During this one battle, we had orders to try to capture one and find out what we could from its crew. I came in low on this one airship’s tail. I was able to shoot out its directionals and blast its rudder controls to pieces. It went down but was still relatively intact when it hit. I was under orders to investigate, salvage any data that might have survived, so I landed right next to it. When I finally got the hatch open and looked in, I saw five kids about my son’s age in there. Teenagers. Young adults. All dressed in those stiff uniforms. One was still alive and muttering one of the litanies – I don’t remember which one, but that’s all he’d say. He’d give his name, rank and litany. Nothing else.”

Tank’s look of surprise changed to understanding. “Jennifer told the captain that she was taken for the Dread Youth seven years before the Metal Wars started. She was just a little girl. If you found teenagers in the ship, then that means Dread had been training children of all different ages during those same years to be his army.”

Hawk nodded. “I contacted my commanding officer, and it turned out that the military brass already knew that a large portion of Dread’s forces were made up of these kids. That’s when we first heard the term Dread Youth. They’d kept that information from the Resistance fighters because they thought we would have issues fighting them and undermine the war effort. Thing is, they were right. It made our job harder.”

“There had to be adults too, right?” Scout asked him.

“There were. Some of them were the overunits. A lot of adults flocked to Dread’s side of the war. They liked what he had to offer them. The thing is that they chose to do that. These kids – we’ve heard some horror stories from Jennifer. They were brainwashed. They didn’t know what Dread had done to them.” Hawk took a deep breath. “The top brass purposely didn’t tell us, but we found out later that they’d known about them for a long time.”

That was information no one had heard before. Even Tank, a product of a genetics lab, had never realized that. “Washington knew?”

Hawk nodded. “Not just Washington. I don’t know how much or exactly when other governments realized it, but I was told that it had happened all over the planet. Children had been taken to who-knows-where after towns and cities were attacked. We should have realized it a lot sooner. Maybe we could have saved some of them.”

“We helped save one,” Scout reminded him. “Now she’s trying to save as many as she can even although none of them listen to her. It doesn’t stop her from trying.”

“This cadet listened to her,” Tank added quickly. “Jennifer cracked her armor. This one really got to her though. She was trying to get the cadet to come with us.”

Scout was still as confused as the others about the incident. “That cadet must have said something or done something different. Jennifer wouldn’t have risked any of us with the biomechs coming unless –”

“Unless the cadet believed her,” Hawk finished. “Usually, they’re trying to kill her.”

“I hope that cadet wasn’t in Med Lab One when Dread destroyed it,” Tank continued. “If Jennifer was able to get through to her, if she was able to make her understand the truth, then that would be another Dread Youth that was freed.”

 

~*~*~*~*~

 

Med Lab One.

Jennifer never mentioned it other than the fact she’d been stationed there for a while.

Jon didn’t know when or for how long or what happened, but how much she didn’t say spoke volumes. Something must have happened there years ago that she didn’t want to talk about.

What had he been thinking, letting her disguise herself as a Dread Youth and go inside that facility? Jon shook his head in disbelief.

It was too dangerous.

It was –

Who was he kidding? He had taken the risk himself to jack into the net at Tech City when others were more capable to perform the task, and that had been the wrong decision. He second guessed himself afterwards and would have chastised the decision in a subordinate. As a leader, he had to allow his people to do their jobs, and sometimes that meant them taking all the risks. Jennifer did the job, and as she said, she was the only one who could do it.

But it was Med Lab One.

He heard the tremble in her voice when she said she was the only one. She had sneaked into other Dread facilities before dressed as one of the soldiers, but this time was different. It was Med Lab One. There might have been people there who might have recognized her if they saw her. She knew that risk the moment she told them the plan.

But her voice trembled.

Jon had never heard that sound in her voice before, not when they first met, not when she faced off with an overunit or youth leader, not when she shot back at biomechs or biodreads. For whatever reason, she was scared. Was it because she was sneaking back into the facility? No, it was something else. She’d been uncomfortable as soon as she emerged from her quarters wearing one of the youth leader uniforms she’d stolen when he’d been taken prisoner and interrogated.

_Jon waited in the hallway, pacing worriedly as he tried to think of another way to get the vaccine without Jennifer sneaking into the med lab. He didn’t want her going in there, not alone. Even though people were sick, dying, needed the vaccine, and the med lab was the only nearby location that could possibly have the quantities they needed, sending Jennifer in there alone scared him._

_Eventually, Jennifer walked out of her quarters in the stiff youth leader outfit, her hair pulled back severely and a cap on her head. She didn’t see Jon at first. She stood still, adjusted the buttons again, she took a breath…_

_She was a little nervous._

_Jennifer didn’t get ‘nervous.’_

_In that moment, Jon understood. She was dressed as a Dread Youth, a persona she detested. Why hadn’t he seen it before? After everything she’d gone through, everything she’d learned to distance herself from ‘Youth Leader Chase,’ the mere act of putting on the uniform must have felt like she was slipping back into that identity. At that moment, Jon silently swore to himself that would never happen, not if he could help it._

_She did look impressive in the stiff uniform._

_Months earlier, she had surprised him when she marched into his interrogation room dressed as an overunit and behaved as one. The look in her eye, the way she moved, the way she stood – all of it was like an ingrained behavior that he’d never took the time to understand. It stood in stark contrast to the first time he’d seen her; her uniform was weathered, ragged, holes worn in it from use it wasn’t meant to withstand. Exhaustion, pain and resignation were in her eyes, and her attitude was the complete opposite of any Dread soldier he’d ever met. The difference was startling, but it was only the beginning of attempting to understand the complex nature of the woman standing before him._

_“Ready?” he asked her as he approached._

_“I think so.” There was some ambivalence in her voice, some shade of loathing, but the tremble was gone. “It’s easy to forget they’re a bit uncomfortable when you don’t wear them every day.”_

_Jon would be happy to never see her in that uniform ever again. It brought up too many bad memories for her. “You don’t have to do this. We can find another way inside,” he offered again._

_Jennifer smiled, sort of. “Those patients can’t wait, and this is the quickest way to get that vaccine.”_

_“I wish you could wear your suit,” he said again._

_“Me too,” she agreed, “but it wouldn’t help me this time. It could set off detectors even if it wasn’t activated.”_

_Resigned to the mission, Jon asked, “How far is the lab from the entry point?”_

_Jennifer thought for a moment. “Not far. If I’m lucky, I can exit through a grate located around the corner from the lab. If not, there’s another shaft that comes out on the other side of the lab, but that corridor used to be a high traffic area. That will be a little trickier.”_

_She’d considered several options of how to sneak in. That much was obvious. “How many labs would have this vaccine?”_

_“Lab 41 was where they were stored before. And this is a Dread facility. Dread likes to keep routines and systems the same, so it’s a fair bet that the vaccine will still be stored there.”_

_That was a risky premise but an understandable conclusion. Still, Jon had the gut feeling that they were throwing her back into the belly of the beast with no way out._

_“What about monitoring systems?”_

_“There are some blind spots. I know a few ways to avoid the cameras.”_

_“So all entryways and exits aren’t monitored?”_

_“No, not all. I don’t think Dread is aware of that or he would have corrected the oversight. After all, it is a med lab. There are enough soldiers to make the place practically impenetrable unless you know where the holes are.”_

_“So you just have to get past the soldiers in certain locations?” Jon asked her, worried that she would be outnumbered at any time._

_“And that will be the easy part,” she said, her voice confident for the first time._

_Easy? He’d seen her fight. She was good. She knew some tricks that surprised them all. She’d get past the soldiers – he had to believe that._

_There were no plans, drawings, or schematics of the facility found anywhere. All Jon knew is that most of it was underground and it was a maze. Jennifer would have to operate on just her memory of the layout because they couldn’t offer any help._

_She would be alone in there, but then again, she would never be alone. He promised her that._

There was something else; something that he didn’t understand. It went beyond the mission being dangerous. It was something else that completely unnerved her. When they were in the jumpship on approach, he looked back at her, she looked at him – in that moment, he saw fear in her eyes, and it was a fear he’d never seen before. Jennifer didn’t get scared often, so when she did, he knew to pay attention.

When Tank brought her back to the jumpship, Jon thought everything was fine. She looked like she’d been in a few scuffles, had a few new bruises and cuts, but she was alive and intact. The look in her eyes came from the confident person Jon knew so well, the one who would smile at him just as she checkmated him at the end of a chess game, the one who would stare daggers at anyone who dared to harm her jump ship. Whatever it was that had worried her going in was gone after the mission was over. Maybe whatever it was that made her nervous was in the med lab itself? It certainly wasn’t what happened outside at the rendezvous point.

_They were scanning the sky, watching for any movement. They were minutes past the hour deadline, and there was no word from Tank or Jennifer. She had to have been at the rendezvous point in time. Tank would have found her, picked her up on the sky bike and they were flying to the ship. Jon wouldn’t let himself think otherwise._

_“There they are,” Scout pointed to the approaching sky bike._

_As the distance between them shrank, Jon could see Jennifer was alive and holding onto Tank. They were all going home from this mission alive._

_Tank landed the sky bike next to the jumpship. Jennifer jumped off and handed the vaccines to Jon. “How’d it go?” he asked._

_“Got in, got out, no problem.” Her voice sounded almost self-satisfied._

_Jon found that hard to believe. “None?”_

_“Some problems,” Tank corrected. “She was fighting biomechs and a cadet was going to shoot her when I flew in.”_

_“No, she wasn’t,” Jennifer corrected quickly. “I think I got through to her.”_

_Got through to her? She had tried to deprogram a Dread Youth in the middle of a mission? Once again, Jon was impressed with her perseverance. “How do you know?” Jon asked._

_“She hasn’t sounded an alarm, there are no biomechs shooting at us at the moment and she was crying earlier. Dread Youth don’t cry, remember?”_

A crying Dread Youth – no, they didn’t cry. Not a real Dread Youth, not one so indoctrinated that they could withstand hearing the truth. Jennifer got through to one, and that was a success in itself. No wonder she seemed like her usual self – she had gotten through to another Dread Youth.

Still, Jennifer was back with them, safe and sound. Jon could breathe easy again – but not for long. It was later that night that Jennifer showed signs of being ill. As usual, she thought she was just tired, ignored the symptoms and continued working on routine maintenance for the jumpship. It was obvious soon enough that she had contracted the more dangerous form of the influenza.

Doctor Ferguson explained the best ways to treat the deadly virus, and there was nothing she could do for Jennifer that they weren’t already doing. Transferring her to the Passages for medical care would be more dangerous than treating her at the base because of the risk of infecting others. The base could be quarantined much more easily than any area of the Passages if necessary, and they had gone far beyond their bed capacity to care for the sick.

The mutated strain was dangerous, deadly, and now, Jon knew it was designed to attack some particular lack of immunity in the physiology of the Dread Youth. Some group in the Resistance had created a virus that was more toxic to them. Now, he had to wonder about what happened to the virus after it was contracted by a Dread Youth. Did it continue to mutate? Did it become more contagious? Did it become deadlier? There were too many questions and not nearly enough answers.

Jennifer was over the worst of it, maybe, hopefully, but when her fever had been so high, when she was mumbling through fevered hallucinations and scared they were coming, whoever ‘they’ were, and scared that she’d been found no matter how many times he assured her she was safe…

She was going to be fine. Jon had to think that. Once the fever truly broke, she would be fine. They weren’t going to lose her.

He needed to clear his head a bit, so he took the longer path back to the sleeping quarters. As he walked into the landing bay, he saw the jumpship. Jennifer had been on board, repairing a few components and running routine diagnostics when she realized that she wasn’t well. She thought it was something she could ‘sleep off,’ but when the fever appeared, she knew that she had contracted the influenza even before Mentor diagnosed her with it.

Jon boarded the jump ship. It seemed hollow and empty for some strange reason. That was when he saw Jennifer’s tools on the floor, exactly where she’d left them. That alone would have warned any one of them that something was wrong. Jennifer never left tools lying around. Everything had a space, and everything had a place. It was part of her Dread Youth past – everything had to be ‘perfect’ to be like the Machine, so even their tools were stored in perfect order. It was a habit she’d tried to break but couldn’t yet. She liked knowing exactly where every tool was at any given time.

Jon placed the tools in the toolbox while being careful not to move any of the ship’s components that she had been working on. It wouldn’t hurt anything if they stayed where they were for a few more days.

He then saw that some of the lockers were open – they’d been too preoccupied with a successful mission to remember to re-secure the locker doors after they retrieved their gear when they returned to the base. No, that wouldn’t do either. Unsecured doors were a danger on a moving ship. He got up and closed the locker doors but paused when he reached his. There was a small disk lying on the bottom shelf. He hadn't seen it before. He reached down, picked it up and read the small note attached to it. _Jon, listen to this if I don’t make it back._ It was in Jennifer’s handwriting.

She’d been worried she wouldn’t make it back.

When did she put it in his locker? He remembered when they returned from destroying the biomechs, Jennifer was coming out of the jump ship. She must have made the recording then. Was it a last minute thought on her part?

He placed the disk back on the bottom shelf in his locker. Since she made it back, he wouldn’t listen to it. He’d much rather speak to the real person. He checked his watch. Jennifer had been asleep about an hour. He’d go check on her, and if she were awake, maybe he could find out what else had bothered her.

 

~*~*~*~*~

 

She was so hot -- the oppressive heat woke her up. Her vision was slightly blurry, but she could make out the empty water glass on the table beside her bunk.

Water.

She wanted some water.

If she could just pick up the glass and walk the few steps to the dispenser, she could have water.

It took some effort to push the blanket off her and sit up. The room swayed back and forth, and she gripped the edge of her mattress to keep from falling over.

“Corporal Chase?” Mentor’s voice was off somewhere in the distance, but she ignored him. She didn’t want to talk to Mentor. She didn’t want to hear him. She didn’t want the room to sway. She didn’t want to move. She just wanted some water, and it was across the room.

She tried to stand, but she couldn’t get her legs to support her and she fell back on her bunk. Out of breath from even the slightest attempt, she sat back up, gripped the edge of the bunk again. “Okay, one more time,” Jennifer said as she tried to catch her breath. All she wanted to do was walk across her quarters to refill her water glass. She didn’t see any reason why she had to ask one of the guys to do it – they had work to do; she could do it -- she didn’t need someone to wait on her hand and foot.

Hand and foot. That was a strange saying. She’d have to ask Mentor what it meant when she felt better.

Wait, she didn’t want to talk to Mentor, right? Didn’t that thought just pass through her head?

If she could just shake off the fever, maybe she could think clearly.

She stood up slowly. The room spun a bit, she reached over, grabbed the chair and held on. She concentrated on breathing, trying to get the pounding in her head to stop and for the room to settle down. She’d been sick before, but nothing like this. Before she met the team, when she was alone in the wilderness hiding from the biomechs, she’d gotten sick. She had never been ill before. She didn’t understand what was happening to her. She remembered reading some research about illnesses that ‘organics’ suffered, but the one thing she remembered was that sick people with fevers needed to remain hydrated. Her fresh water supply was low at the time. She had to ration it even though her fever made it hard for her to think.

Then the clickers showed up, and she ran for her life, across the river, up the mountain --

This influenza was far worse. Her thinking was more than muddled, her limbs were weak, and her bones were hurting. It didn’t matter that she’d be well in a few more days. Right then, at that moment, she felt awful.

The room spun again, the floor caved in beneath her, the chair started to flip –

“Easy, I’ve got you,” a familiar voice said in her ear. She felt strong arms coming around her, then being sat down in the chair as a cool hand cupped her face. “Mentor told me you were awake. You’ve still got a fever, but it’s not as bad,” he said, his voice sounding relieved. “Doctor Ferguson said that’s a good sign that you’re over the worst of it.”

She opened her eyes and found Jon kneeling right beside her.

“Did you need something?” he asked her, his voice sounding concerned.

She took a rattled breath – odd, her lungs were working fine the other day. “I wanted some water,” she whispered, her voice still weak and unsteady.

“I’ll get it,” he said gently as he reached over and took the water glass from her. He filled it up and helped her hold it as she drank. The water didn’t do much to soothe her raw throat, but it stopped her from being so thirsty.

“I thought I could walk across the room,” she muttered as she closed her eyes and curled up in the chair. His hand returned to her forehead, then her cheek. She felt his other hand push her hair behind her ear. She just needed a moment… just a moment… had to catch her breath… had to keep the room from spinning…

“I know,” she heard him chuckle. “Let’s get you back in bed.”

“No,” she placed her hand on his arm but didn’t open her eyes. “Need to sit up for a few minutes.”

 

~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Jon wasn’t going to argue with her. He understood – she just needed to do something other than lay there and feel helpless. When the sickness had been at its worst and they thought they were going to lose her, Doctor Ferguson explained what was she was going through as the stages progressed. Each version of each mutation followed a distinct pattern, and the version Jennifer suffered from was a more virulent strain. Once the fever started to abate, then hopefully, the worst was over as long as she rested and didn’t have a relapse. They wouldn’t know for certain until the fever broke. They were just going to have to ride out the illness and hope for the best. When her fever did come down, there had been a collective sigh of relief among the team.

“Feeling any better?” he asked, knowing the answer.

She grunted slightly as if the effort to speak was too much.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he smiled.

“No, it’s better,” her voice was still weak and her breathing was shallow. “I’m tired… it’s hard to breathe... lying down.”

Hard to breathe… Jon wasn’t going to forget how hard it was to listen to her gasp for every breath just the day before.

Her face was cooler than it had been. The fever was weakening and would break soon. There would be no relapse. He had to believe that. She was going to be fine.

When he found out which Resistance cell had created that virus and lost control of it –

“Did the vaccine work?” she whispered.

She’d asked the question several times before, but with a fever so high, she probably didn’t remember hearing an answer.

“It worked, and you got more than enough. We just got an update from Doctor Ferguson. They were able to contain the influenza to their region and get vaccines to the borders. Looks like it’ll be over with soon.” He wondered if he should tell her about the med lab – no, later, when she was better. She’d blame herself, but it wasn’t her fault. There was no way they could guess that she carried the illness into the facility when the doctors themselves thought that they were safe after being inoculated.

She opened her eyes for a moment and asked, “What about you?”

She had asked him that question several times as well. “Me? I’m all right. We all are.” He was going to have to tell her that the illness was lab-created by Resistance forces trying to hurt the Dread Youth. How could he do that? How could he admit that people they were allied with did something that could potentially kill her? That was a conversation for another time.

“Good,” she muttered, her breathing still shallow but at least she wasn’t fighting for every breath any longer. She leaned against his hand, letting him support her head for a moment.

“Jennifer, can I ask you something?” Jon tilted her head just a little so she could look at him. Her eyes weren’t fever bright any longer, thank goodness, but he saw how tired she was. She needed to sleep. As soon as he could talk her into it, he was putting her back in her bunk to let her sleep some more, but she needed to sit up for just a few minutes. He would sit there with her as long as she needed him.

She nodded her head slightly.

“If you don’t want to tell me, I’ll understand and I won’t ask again. I was wondering… something scared you before you went into the med lab. Is it something you can talk about?”

She didn’t say anything at first. She frowned a bit as if trying to remember. “I didn’t want them to take me back if they caught me,” she muttered.

“Take you back?” Jon didn’t understand exactly what she meant. Some of the words she had muttered when she was so sick hadn’t made sense. Some was mumbling, some was out of context, but ‘take you back’ could have multiple meanings.

She took a shuddering breath. “I’m a traitor to the Machine. Dread wouldn’t want his troops to know that any of us defy him.” She paused for a moment, as if trying to find the right thought. “He could have me digitized, but he’d probably make an example of me for having… doubts.”

This was something new, something she’d never mentioned before. “Made an example of – how?”

Her eyes met his, and the fear was there again, but her voice was a little stronger. “It’d be worse than executing me. He’d brainwash me, turn me back into a Dread Youth. Turn me into a non-thinking drone that only obeys orders. Dread has the technology to warp people’s minds. He’d take away everything that made me _me_. I won’t go back to that. I’d rather be dead.”

That’s what she meant – Tank had told them what Jennifer had said to Cadet Erin when they made their escape. She’d let Erin choose, but one of the choices was to kill Jennifer. She wouldn’t go back; she wouldn’t let anyone take her back. She’d fight, she’d die, but she wouldn’t let Dread take away what made her Jennifer Chase

If she’d been caught and taken before Dread – she knew what fate awaited traitors to the Machine Empire, and she boldly walked into Med Lab One with that threat hanging over her.

She shivered, and Jon reached over to pull the blanket off the bunk. He covered her with it and tucked it around her. “I don’t want you getting sick again,” he told her.

She looked at him for a moment, then said mid-cough, “It’s dangerous to know the truth.”

The old saying, ‘the truth will set you free’ meant something different in context with Dread than the saying may have originally meant, but there were consequences Jon hadn’t considered before. “More than I thought,” he agreed. “I didn’t know Dread could do that.”

“He can,” she affirmed. “There were rumors when I was there… I don’t know what he did, but some of the results were disasters. I won’t let that happen to me. I won’t go back.”

They were quiet for a while. Jon thought that she was dozing off and was ready to carry her back to her bunk when she said, “I got through to her. That cadet. Erin. All the soldiers I’ve tried to make understand that Dread lied to them, she’s the first one I know really heard me.”

“She heard you,” he said. “Tank told me more about what happened when he picked you up at the rendezvous point. You made an impression on her.”

Jennifer clutched the blanket around her some more. “I might have put her in more danger.”

More danger? Because it was dangerous to know the truth? There was more to it – there had to be. If she was willing to talk, Jon was more than willing to listen. He pulled another chair next to hers and sat down. “What do you mean?”

“We were watched all the time, everywhere we went, by the surveillance cameras and the caretakers and the overunits.” She tipped the water glass and took another sip. “If anyone exhibited any unexpected behavior, they wanted to know why.”

She’d mentioned something like that before, how ‘unexpected’ behavior meant someone ‘disappeared.’ “Do you think she’ll behave differently now that she knows the truth?”

“I don’t know,” Jennifer whispered, her voice scratchy. “I had to force myself to not look and stare at everyone else. I saw everything so differently.” She coughed and took another sip of water. “All those Dread Youth marching by, going to their assigned positions, all of them so proud to serve the Machine and all I could think of was that it was nothing but lies. I couldn’t tell anyone. Even if I did, they wouldn’t believe me. I couldn’t let anyone think I believed any less – it was so hard.”

Jon had never considered the difficulties she faced in the days and hours before she escaped on that mission. The idea of being so completely alone in a fortress full of people who would report her if they thought she had a single disloyal thought -- she had to have been scared. “But you did it,” he assured her. “You fooled them long enough to get out.”

She shook her head at the memory. “When I escaped, I didn’t have anywhere to go, no supplies, nothing. I knew I wasn’t going to survive for very long and I didn’t deserve to, not after what I did –”

Jon placed a single finger over her lips to quiet her. “You didn’t know,” he told her. He’d tell her as many times as necessary to let her know that no one blamed her for Sand Town. She had no choice to do whatever it was she did or didn’t do.

She stared at the almost empty glass of water. Jon could tell that she was getting more tired by the minute, but there was something she needed to say. He waited.

“Ever felt guilty?” she asked him.

Guilty? Sure, he felt guilt. He knew how overwhelming it could be, but the guilt she felt at Sand Town wasn’t of her own making. How could he make her see that? “Yeah, I’ve felt guilty.”

The look she gave him indicated she didn’t really believe him. Maybe she was talking about a different type of guilt? “When I realized what it all meant, all the litanies and the slogans and what Dread was doing, I knew I was part of it. I thought all I was… was a traitor to the Dread Youth and the Machine. I felt guilty, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t realize that it was guilt from harming other humans.” She coughed, hard. “I didn’t realize I was human until you told me, remember?”

“I remember,” he told her. Jon would never forget that day or that conversation.

_Hawk and Scout had worked on the jump ship’s engines for two days without success. Nothing was working._

_“We need a new ship,” Scout mumbled as they tried one more time to realign the circuits. “This one is about to fall apart on us._

_“There aren’t any available,” Hawk told him as Tank exited the jumpship with a box of spare parts in his hands. “Anything useable?”_

_“Not much,” he answered. “Everything we have has been re-used too many times.”_

_Hawk was the first to see their ‘guest’ slowly limping toward them. She was becoming a little more social as time went on, gradually becoming more acclimated to being around them. Maybe she still didn’t trust them, but she didn’t distrust them like she did when they first met. She wasn’t a typical Dread Youth, that was for certain. She was interested in everything that was going on around her. It was as if she were seeing and hearing certain things for the first time – and that was probably the truth. “Hello there,” Hawk said._

_“Hello.” She looked at the many circuits and gears scattered over the area, assessing them with a practiced eye, gauging the quality of the parts and the state of the repairs. “Can I help?”_

_She’d been more than helpful since she’d arrived and had healed enough to walk unassisted. No task was too overwhelming, demeaning, or unnecessary. She took pride in doing any task allowed her to perfection. Maybe that much was from the Dread Youth, but the desire to help certain wasn’t._

_“Sure. We’re trying to repair these engines. We’re not having much luck.”_

_Jennifer looked at the ship and the parts. “It could use some restructuring and rewiring, but it should fly.”_

_“Should, but she’s not,” Hawk agreed. “The ship’s got some age on her and she’s not as reliable as she used to be.”_

_Jennifer looked at him oddly. “She?”_

_Hawk frowned. “She? Oh, she. Sometimes, inanimate objects are referred to as a she or a he, depending on what it is. It’s just a figure of speech.”_

_Jon watched their interaction from where he was sitting as he worked on a circuit. Every day, Jennifer revealed more about her life in the Dread Youth just by every day actions or comments. They learned more about what the Dread Youth didn’t know as well. It had been an eye-opening experience. There were some things she wouldn’t talk about, and they didn’t know if she wasn’t ready or if she didn’t know she could talk about them. Whatever the answer was, they were willing to wait, to give her the chance to connect with her humanity._

_She looked at the main engine and pointed out a certain area to Hawk. “This motherboard can be repaired if we change out the main circuit. Do you have any vicon circuits?”_

_Jon had no idea what she was talking about. Luckily, Hawk did. “Yeah, but those are antiques. No one has used them for over thirty years.”_

_“A vicon circuit is made of the same materials as the motherboard on the main processor that acts as the interface between the engine controls and the control console,” she explained. “If we set up a direct link by rebuilding a vicon circuit to the motherboard’s specifications and plugging it –”_

_“We could bypass several circuits that aren’t working!” Scout said enthusiastically. “That’s brilliant. It’ll keep us flying until we can replace the burned-out components,” Scout looked at her appreciatively. “Do you know how to fly a ship, too?”_

_“Yes,” she told him. “I have a Class Five rating.”_

_Scout shook his head. “What’s that mean?”_

_Hawk laughed. “In Dreadspeak, it means she can fly anything with wings.” Hawk glanced back at Jon who nodded approvingly, and then he looked up at the ship. “Do you think you could get this bucket of bolts flying again? We’ve been doing repair work on her for a while now, but what she needs is someone who really understands how it all works together.”_

_Jennifer looked at the ship. “I can try.” Try. That was a word they had taught her how to use. In the Machine world, there was no concept of “try.” It was either do or don’t and failure was not an option._

_“Great! How many vicon circuits do you think you’ll need?”_

_Jennifer looked at the engine, at the worn circuitry, and the burned out components – it was going to be a rather involved repair job. “Several. Maybe more,” she told him._

_“Then several you’ll have,” Hawk told her. He looked up at Tank and Scout. “Okay, we’ve got to go find those circuits. I’ll take the storage room. Why don’t you two go look through the discards to see if any are salvageable in there?”_

_As soon as they were alone, Jon stood and walked over to her. “Do you think there’s hope for this ship?”_

_Either Jennifer didn’t understand the question or she read a different meaning into it. “The ship is a machine, and machines can be repaired.”_

_“Yeah, but this ship has seen better days.”_

_Jennifer looked at the parts in need of repairs again. “And it’s just a machine,” she muttered more to herself than to Jon. “I never thought about it before.”_

_“What’s that?”_

_“We serve the Machine, but machines have to be maintained and repaired. If machines are all-powerful, why would they need repairing?”_

_Jon smiled. “I guess Dread didn’t want you to think thoughts like that. It leads to more questions.”_

_She reached down and picked up one of the worn-out components. Jon could tell that she was still struggling with a lot of questions and concepts she’d never been exposed to before, trying to find out where she belonged in a world that she had never lived in or been a part of. She had been able to ask Mentor a lot of questions since Jon gave her access to allowed information in the database. He hadn’t eavesdropped, but he did ask Mentor if Jennifer ever asked questions regarding classified information. She wanted to know about history, literature, music, art and philosophy. She wanted to know about life._

_“Then who’s superior? Machines or organics? Machines have to be repaired but organics can be killed.”_

_“Humans are superior,” Jon told her gently. “Humans think and feel and breathe. Humans are flesh and blood. Machines are mindless metal tools that we use to help make life easier for us.”_

_From the look Jennifer gave him, that was a concept she had never considered before. “Us?” she asked._

_Well, then again, maybe there was another concept she hadn’t considered, not just the fact that machines were meant to help humanity, not rule them. “Us. Humans. You, me, Hawk, Scout, Tank, all the survivors of the wars – all of us.”_

_The look in her eyes confused Jon. She frowned, then Jon added quickly, “We’re human. Just like our parents were before us.”_

_Jennifer looked down at her hand, and Jon saw her contemplate the complexity of it. “Organics are human,” she muttered softly. “I’m organic.”_

_“You’re human,” Jon corrected her with a smile. That was it. That was what confused her. She’d never considered herself human before. The Machine hadn’t allowed that concept to be formed._

_Dread’s attempt to wipe out humanity wasn’t just literal – he wanted to destroy the perception of being human as well._

Jennifer took a deep breath. “I didn’t make the connection that I was human until then.”

Jon hadn’t realized that a simple statement could be taken in such a way.

“You know, that’s what I meant when I said you freed me from the Dread Youth,” she commented. “You showed me I was human. I had never called myself that before.” She almost laughed but coughed instead. “If I had realized that before I escaped, I don’t know if I would have made the same decisions I did when I was alone in the wilderness. Maybe I would have looked for help instead of hiding.”

Jon was beginning to see where she was going. “So you told Erin that she was human –”

“Like her parents before her. Flesh and blood. She didn’t believe me, but I got her thinking. She has to realize that she’s human and not a machine. Maybe she won’t think that others are animals.”

Jon listened to her voice. It was becoming a little more slurred. She was tiring quickly. “Animals?”

“Part of the training,” she said. “Animals live… outside. They fight the will of the Machine.”

Ah. Another part of Dread’s belief system about the machine’s superiority that he taught to his soldiers. “So maybe she’ll realize the truth, and if she decides to escape, she’ll have other options because she’ll know she’s human. She’ll look for help from others. All because of you.”

Jennifer closed her eyes again and leaned her head against the chair. Jon looked at her, assimilating this new information for a moment. She had tried so many times to get through to a single Dread Youth, and now that she did, she was worried about what happened afterwards. Was the cadet safe? Was she worrying that anyone who looked at her could see she was no longer a loyal Dread Youth? Could she escape if she chose to? Would she? Would she be alone or would she seek out help? None of them had asked themselves those questions.

Maybe they should have.

“You did good,” he told her.

She barely nodded her head, clearly unable to fight the fatigue any longer. Jon watched her for a few minutes, listening to her easier breathing, grateful she was going to be okay. Everything was going to be all right – he couldn’t have said that just yesterday, not when she was in the grips of a high fever.

In all the conversations they had shared, whether it was over a chess game or while they were running maintenance on the jump ship, she’d never once seemed scared. Angry, yes. Frustrated, definitely. Scared? Never. Yet, the punishment she could have faced if she had been caught… there was no limit to her courage. How many missions had she proven how fearless she was? Too many to count. Jon himself was alive because of her willingness to face any danger, no matter the situation.

He reached out and took her hand. There were so many things he would like to say to her, let her know…

Jon noticed that Jennifer was falling asleep again. There would be time to talk later, when she was well again, when the war didn’t stand between them. “Come on, back to your bunk,” he said as he gently lifted her to her feet and helped her to lie back down. He covered her with the blanket and then placed another glass of water on the nearby table. He felt her forehead one more time as she curled up on her side. Her fever was almost gone. “Get some more sleep. I think you’ll feel a lot better when you wake up.”

Before he left, he dimmed the lights and took a last look at her. She was already sound asleep. She was breathing easier, the fever was lower, and she was alive. So many others weren’t so lucky, but she was. He felt that he was also a lucky man. Jennifer was there, alive and almost well. The influenza didn’t take her from him. The mission itself had been full of dangers he’d been unaware of, but were they worth it? Did the end justify the risks? She got the vaccine, a lot of people would survive, Jennifer had escaped the med lab virtually unscathed and maybe, just maybe, there was one more Dread Youth who realized she didn’t belong.

Just like Jennifer did.

After all the times Jennifer had told a Dread Youth soldier the truth, one listened. It was a success that Jennifer had tried so hard for so long to achieve, and she did.

For her sake, for Jennifer’s sake, Jon hoped the cadet didn’t just listen but heard her as well.

Now, he had to find out which Resistance group had created the disease that almost cost him Jennifer.

 

~*~*~*~*~

 

**Volcania**

Every infirmary bed was filled. The influenza had passed beyond Med Lab One and infected other Dread facilities until Dread contained it. For the Dread forces, the price had been high.

Lord Dread walked through the infirmary, looking for the one cadet who could answer his questions. Finally, he reached the infirmary bed with Cadet Erin. She was recovering from both the influenza and the wound in her leg.

“Cadet Erin,” Dread said in a low voice so he wouldn’t disturb any of the other patients.

The cadet opened her eyes. Dread had expected to see a surprised look on her face – after all, how often did Lord Dread himself visit a mere cadet in an infirmary? Still, the look was not one of surprise. It was one of confusion. Perhaps she was still suffering from a fever?

Erin cleared her throat. “Lord Dread. My apologies. I didn’t realize you were here.”

Her voice sounded a bit… unimpressed… with his arrival. Even the apology seemed to be an afterthought. It must be the fever, Dread thought to himself. “No apologies are necessary, Cadet. However, I would like you to describe your attacker, the one who infiltrated the base.”

There was a slight hesitation on Erin’s part, as if she were trying to find the right words. Dread attributed her lack of automatic response to the fatigue brought on by her illness and wound. “I’m not certain that the person who attacked me infiltrated the base, my lord,” she said, her voice a bit shaky and weak. “It was a female, much older than me, with darker hair and darker eyes.”

That was a surprise. “Are you certain? This person did not look as if she could be a member of the Dread Youth?”

Erin shook her head. “No, my lord. It was also dark, so I could not see her face clearly, but I don’t believe she could have ever been a Dread Youth.”

“I see,” Dread sighed. He had so hoped… “Do you believe that this organic was working with another?”

“With such a logistical attack, I don’t know how it could have been less than two people, my lord, but I saw only her.”

Disappointing, but Erin was a Dread Youth, sworn to obey Dread. There was no doubt that she believed what she said. “Thank you, Cadet. You did well.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

 

~*~*~*~*~

 

Erin watched Dread march off with his expectations not quite fulfilled. She had never before been in Dread’s presence, and merely days before, it would have been the highlight of her career. Now, she didn’t want to be in the same building with him. Once, the thought of not telling the absolute truth would have horrified her. Now, she felt no compulsion to let Dread know the identity of the intruder.

The more she thought about what the intruder said, the more she questioned. If she was a Dread Youth, of the Body Electric, loyal to Dread, to be his fists so he can make the world perfect, then how could she be human? Yet she was human, an organic. She was the same as those the biodreads and Dread Youth hunted down. She had once had parents – human parents. She was flesh and blood, just like the soldier said.

She looked around the infirmary and saw – really saw for the first time – the people around her. She watched the technicians, the doctors, the other patients, the guards, all of them. Some performed their assigned duties with precise skill, with no wasted motions. So many moved with the ‘efficiency of the machine.’ Yet there were others… for the first time in her young life, Erin really looked at how people were behaving, how they reacted, the look in their eyes. How could she not have realized that blind loyalty to Dread was not universal? There was the blank stare of the guard standing watch at the door, the look of annoyance in the eyes of the doctor, utter defiance in one of the recovering Dread Youth soldiers. The defiant look of that Dread Youth was the same rebellious one she saw in Power’s soldier. When the soldier looked at Erin, he blinked, and the defiant look disappeared immediately. He didn’t look at Erin after that.

He doubted. Someone else doubted. Erin was sure of that.

If the wrong people thought that anyone doubted, the results would be catastrophic.

She listened as well. Some were muttering words meant to show their loyalty to the Machine. A few days earlier, that was her spouting off a litany to the soldier who bandaged her leg. She’d believed every word until the soldier recited the litany from memory as well. A Dread Youth fighting the Machine Empire? Saying that it was all a lie? How could that be possible? Yet every word the soldier said got Erin thinking. The more she thought, the more anxious she became.

She was thinking and feeling – the soldier had been right. Dread told them feelings were bad, but the feelings she was experiencing weren’t bad. They were alerting her to something… some new thoughts that would have never before entered her mind.

Erin had so many questions, but there was one answer that she knew without a doubt.

She didn’t belong there anymore.

 

The End


End file.
